LITMIR.BIZ

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she had also managed to piss off the Mage Council, the self-proclaimed hall monitors of the Talent world, by letting it be known the part they had played in that murder. Not that they had anything against snuffing out a life or two, especially if the victim was a Null, a nonmagic user. But they hadn’t exactly played by their own rules, and that was supposed to be a no-no.

      That disclosure had led them to the dilemma under discussion. At least partially—mostly—because of that job, the Mage Council had put Wren on their Most Annoying list.

      Well, big whoop, she had thought at the time. The Council and lonejacks, the unaffiliated Talents, had been sparring for generations. As a lonejack, Wren always figured she came under the general Council evaluation of “shiftless, undisciplined, and not worthy to polish our expensive shoes.” Apparently not. Instead, they were looking closely at her. Way too closely. And plotting…something. Wren didn’t see what it was about her specifically that made the Council so particularly nervous. But whatever it was, it did. And a nervous Council was a nasty Council.

      “They’ve started a whisper campaign,” she said finally, reluctantly. “Tree-taller—Lee—told me when he and Miriam stopped by for drinks last week.” The lonejack artist and his wife had made a point since all this started of dropping in regularly, as much a “bite me” to the Council as anything else. Although the fact that Miriam, like Sergei, was a Null, a non-Talent, and maybe—Wren bit that thought back before it could go anywhere. Now was not the time to be worrying at what anyone else thought of her romantic relationship (or present lack thereof) with her partner. Another thing she was avoiding.

      “The Council, that is. Whisper something in one ear, whisper something else in another. Nothing obvious, nothing anyone can pinpoint, but—”

      “And you’re just now getting around to telling me this?” Sergei was pissed. You could tell by the way his face went totally stone, except that little twitch at the corner of his left eye.

      Well, yes. Because, as he pointed out, she had been avoiding him. For any number of really uncomfortable reasons. “I was hoping…I don’t know. That maybe Lee was overstating the case? That it wouldn’t work? That the weather would break and we could have this discussion without it disintegrating into a snit-fight?”

      “I don’t take snits.”

      Sergei sounded wounded, and even under these conditions she had to grin. “Partner, you are the King of Snits. And it’s too damn hot to deal with that, okay?”

      Ten years of working together allowed her to interpret the heavy sigh that came out of him this time. He was letting it go. “You still should have told me.”

      “I’m telling you now. And it’s not like you could have done anything, anyway. My rep’s too good for them to actually say I’m incompetent, or anything. Whatever they say, it’s harmless until you actually try to counter it.” She hoped. “But if you do protest, then people start to wonder if there’s something to make you deny it…. Only I guess they’re saying more than that, if the jobs are drying up that fast.” She hadn’t honestly expected it to get this bad this quick. Which was why she wasn’t supposed to be handling the business end of things. Sergei was.

      “Probably not saying much at all, actually. Just enough to make people wonder if maybe hiring this particular lonejack is such a good idea after all,” he said now. “Especially if they’re not anxious to get any scent of publicity about their situation.” Which was pretty much the point of hiring a Retriever rather than one of the more traditional and legal forms of getting back missing property. A thief who used magic to get the job done was a thief much less likely to come under official attention, at least in the Null world, and was the only type of thief you’d want to consider if the situation had even a whiff of magic about it. The fact that Wren, rather than depending solely on her Talent, combined it and general more everyday illegal Talents to perform her jobs, made her able to move effectively against any kind of surveillance or countermeasures, and made her very popular for “normal” world jobs as well.

      She was good, she was smart, and she had been very, very lucky. Until now.

      “Yeah. I’m guessing that’s the plan.” She frowned at the thought, and twirled the end of her shoulder-length braid between two fingers as she thought. “Most of the Cosa—” the Cosa Nostradamus, the magical community made up of human Talents and the nonhuman fatae “—knows it’s bullshit. At least from what Lee says. But they’re going to lay low anyway, until whatever’s going on is gone.”

      “The Cosa are not the ones who usually hire us,” her partner said. He was the one who handled the offers, so he knew that for a fact. A lot of their commissions came from Nulls, those who had no ability to work current, the stuff of modern magic. Most, in fact, knew nothing about how the Retriever known as The Wren did her work, only that she was the best available for the job. Whatever the job might be. Hell, most of them thought that Sergei was The Wren. Which was how both Wren and Sergei liked it.

      But the Council had its hooks set in flesh outside the Cosa as well, and was proving they had no hesitation about using that influence. And they knew damn well who she was.

      Wren put down the fan and finished off what was left of her now warm, now flat soda. “At least they’re not trying to kill me anymore,” she said, trying for cheerful.

      Sergei only grunted, shaking the plastic glass as though more iced tea would suddenly appear in it. “I’d almost rather they were.”

      Wren slanted a dirty look at him, but didn’t ask him to elaborate on that comment.

      “No,” he went on, oblivious, “you were right. Any overt move by the Council would only set the lonejacks even more in opposition, and maybe even force a direct revolt against perceived Council interference. They don’t want that.

      “But they don’t want you in any position to be a focal point of unrest, either. Shutting you down reduces your influence, and sends a message to the rest of the lonejack community as well. Time-honored tactics.”

      “Jesus wept. The Council being subtle. Now that’s scary.” She scraped up the few tendrils of coca-brown hair that were plastered against her neck and tried without much hope of success to shove them back into her braid. “They don’t need to shut me down! I don’t want to be a focal point! Why does everyone think I want to be any kind of leader?” The whole point of being unaffiliated, a lonejack, was to not have to worry about anyone but yourself. And your partner, yeah.

      Sergei shifted with another grunt, the back of his shirt plastered to him with sweat. “It’s not what you want that matters to them, Wren. It’s the perception. You’ve told them to take a leap before.”

      Wren winced at the reminder of a more youthful and astonishingly stupid incident in her life. That was the problem with working with someone for so long, especially if they had a good memory.

      Her partner, he of the most excellent memory, was relentless in ticking off more reasons. “You hang out with lonejacks and Nulls and fatae equally, which we already knew made them nervous. Especially the fatae.” Nonhumans, the fantasticals. “And then, adding injury to insult, you—we—faced them down over the Frants deal this spring. And won. People know that. Gossip spreads. And that’s what they’re afraid of.”

      Wren looked at him through narrowed eyes. He could be such a plainspoken bastard sometimes, for all that he made his living making nice in order to close the deal. Although his suit jacket had been dropped on the back of a kitchen chair with no regard for how much it had cost, and the well-polished oxblood loafers had been kicked off the moment he got inside the apartment, he still looked far too trendy-normal to be lying on the floor of an East Village apartment trying to figure the politics of a world most of humanity had no clue existed.

      You could see him easily in the center of his art gallery. Or going nose-to-nose with the Council in a war of words, like he did during the Frants job. Not so easy to recognize the guy who pulled a gun to get her out of a job gone bad, last winter. But they were both in there. Plus the guy who held her when she was too sore and scared to move, while she slept, but refused to do her

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